McAnulty’s Mission

The College prepares students for productive and creative lives of service in a rapidly changing world. We teach students to think, write and speak clearly and critically, so they can seek truth about God, themselves, and society, and contribute to their families, communities, businesses and professions.

Hope everyone’s having an amazing summer so far! These hot days have been flying by and it’s already July so I figured it was about time for a quick post now that there’s an entire new class of Duquesne freshmen and transfer students.

If you’re new to the blog, you should know that my name is Erica, I’m an upcoming sophomore in the McAnulty College, and I write for this blog to share my experiences at Duquesne with anyone whose interested. Right now I’m just offering a chance to get questions answered or clear up any confusions about McAnulty, Duquesne, move-in…pretty much anything Duquesne related. If I don’t know the answer off-hand I’ll do everything I can to figure it out so everyone has as smooth of a transition as possible. Get ready everyone, because you’re gonna love the Bluff! 🙂

Please feel free to submit any questions or comments to this post and hopefully I’ll be able to get back to you with an answer as soon as possible. So ask away!

For those of you who are interested, I survived junior year. I’m officially a senior at Duquesne University. You may hold your applause until the end of the blog post.

But before I get to the the thrill of graduation, the agony of senior thesis, and the human drama of secondary education (props to anyone who gets that reference), another four-month task stands in my way: the temporary workforce.

In my flurry of schoolwork, school newspaper work, work study job, and trying to maintain some semblance of a social life, I had little chance to search for a job or internship most of the semester. The job I had last summer – “warehouse associate” of a company that made aluminum insulator pipes – can’t give me hours, and while my hands are very happy that they won’t be bleeding as much this summer, my wallet is not as happy.

Even internships are difficult to come by. Journalism internships are rough because most don’t pay well, if at all. And banks aren’t exactly chomping at the bit to give out internships with this whole “we’-re having a financial crisis and it’s all the banks’ fault” thing going on. This means I’m doing what I’ve done for the last two summers: searching for random full and part time labor to get me through until August.

However, my suffering can be to your benefit, readers. Frantically searching for employment has made me somewhat well-versed in the art of the summer job search.

First off, the Internet is a beautiful thing, especially if you don’t live in the area you go to school in (i.e. you go to Duquesne but live in Philadelphia like me). Not only are online job search sites great for simply looking for jobs, but most offer a “common application,” meaning you fill out your core application once and submit that to each employer, with a couple additional questions to answer for each individual job. This saves you an incredible amount of time; in the time it would take you to drive around town and fill out three or four applications, you can apply for twenty-five different positions online.

For jobs or internships that are related to your major in college, you need to be looking starting in January. They’re valuable, competitive, and fill up very quickly. A site like JobsOnline or Monster that specializes in long-term “career”-type employment would be a good place to look for these jobs.

For regular summer jobs, such as working in retail or landscaping, you can usually apply later in the semester, even up until late April, and still be okay. SnagAJob.com is a great site for this. You may think that online applications get lost in the mess of millions of applicants, but I received two phone calls just two days after applying for jobs on SnagAJob.

Second, if you’ve applied for online jobs and haven’t heard back in about a week, drive around to the different places you applied and see what’s going on. You can call and do this as well, but it’s much harder for someone to deny you or claim they “don’t do job applications” in person than over the phone. Plus, while some might seem annoyed that you’re “harassing” them, most will appreciate your hustle.

Day camps are always fun too. If you’re good with children and don’t mind (or love) being outside, being a day camp counselor is a great job, although the pay is not always the greatest.

Lastly, there’s always College Pro Painter. A painting and window-cleaning company, College Pro Painter has been hiring exclusively college students for summer work for nearly forty years. You’ll spend the summer “cold-calling” potential customers for estimates, painting houses, and basically working hard, but they have a very good hire rate. Always consider them, unless you’re not a fan of manual labor or pass out at the scent of acrylic paint.

That’s the end of my guided tour of summer employment. We hope you’ll come again soon. The gift shop is to your right–please buy something. As I’ve mentioned before, I could certainly use the cash.

After twenty-four full hours of totems, charisma (as in “deep truth revealed by cosmic order, recognized by social adherence”), and modernity, I thought I would officially commence the summer with one last blog as a freshman at Duquesne University. Finals sucked, I’m not going to lie. Luckily, I only had four finals (instead of the dreaded five) and I think I did well on all of them. My classes were awesome, my professors helpful, and my experience wonderful!

Let me tie up some odds and ends:

I think I’ve finally decided on a major… sort of. I entered Duquesne as a journalism major, enrolled in the Narratio learning community. Although I have decided to not pursue a career in the journalism field, I could not be happier with the path I took. Besides the obvious elements (such as making great friends, having awesome professors, and fun opportunities…like blogging!), I have found many of the classes I have taken this past year will be helpful in building my future curriculum. For example, Media and Society has been a great stepping-stone to future classes I will be taking. So, without further ado, I have decided to make my own major. The liberal arts college offers this incredible program in which a student literally makes a major of their own. With the help of my adviser, I decided this was the best path for me because of my future goals (to go to NYU and get a MSW/JD). If you have your heart set on Duquesne, but the liberal arts college does not have the exact major you are looking for, I would suggest looking into the program. In order to do this, I must compose my curriculum plan to our dean along with my reasoning for this course of study (major summer project). What do I plan on studying exactly? I like to call it a degree in feminism… it will be a unique combination of media studies, sociology, women studies, and conflict resolution.

That brings me to my next point: you’re never too new to get involved. Though countless advisors, interviewers, and peers have told me I am way ahead of the game, I think I am just trying to stay on the right path, following my passions. So, as my summer plans shape up, I will be working for an OB/GYN Monday through Thursday, and Fridays and Saturdays will be devoted to my internship, the first exciting leap into my career path. I briefly mentioned it before, but since it began in January, I have hardly had the time to blog about it. Anyway, I will be an intern for Ms. Courtney Martin, feminist activist and author. The Women’s Center Therapy Institute, in NYC, has asked to be the frontrunner for their international campaign against distorters of body image. The campaign, entitled Endangered Species: Preserving the Female Body, is scheduled to occur in March of 2011 and I am ecstatic to announce that I have currently been working on the guest list!

In terms of getting involved on campus and in Pittsburgh, I would encourage new freshmen to step out of the comfort zone and just try everything. Organizations I have become heavily involved with are CONTACT Pittsburgh, Strong Women Strong Girls, the Liberal Art blog, and Residence Life, as well as Phi Eta Sigma (the freshmen honors fraternity) and Lambda Sigma (the sophomore honors fraternity). Becoming involved was one of the best decisions I have made all year. Sure, it took guts to attend all those initial meetings, but luckily I have them. J If you don’t, please, please take me up on this offer: email me, comment me, ask me questions etc. Being involved is key, especially as a Duquesne student!

Thinking back to high school, I still don’t enjoy being a freshman a.k.a. “fresh meat” and the like. But at Duquesne, faculty and peer leaders somehow manage to make it less scary then James Caldwell High School did. In fact, it’s not the kind of scary where you want to go home or eat lunch in the bathroom; it’s more like scary before a performance, a date, or a speech. Oh wait… I think the word for that is excitement.

Is anyone else unable to believe this school year is over already?! It feels like I just got my acceptance letter, began writing for the blog, and experienced orientation, but its already time to move allllll of my stuff back home! This has probably been the best freshman year I could have asked for so I really am sad to see it end.

As I tried to hold back tears when my family drove away last August and left me standing alone in front of St. Anns, I could never even have imagined all the amazing people I now consider my best friends, the crazy memories we will always share, and the endless opportunities I have been able to take advantage of over these past months.

If Duquesne weren’t the perfect home for me, I wouldn’t be this sad to leave. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to be mostly stress-free and spend hours in the sun, but it has been hard to see everyone go these past few days. As my lack of recent blogging proves, I have been very busy with final exams and papers lately, just as everyone has, so we didn’t quite have enough free time to spend together at the end. I’m not too worried about it though, because even though my new friends are headed back to various homes all over the country, good old facebook and texting will allow us to keep in touch until August when we’re onto our new home in Towers.

To incoming freshman, my advice would be to keep an open mind. Attend whatever school gives you that gut feeling because you will really be spending all your time there. It may be a little nerve wracking at first but once you settle in, give every new person and organization a chance, and you’ll sure to find a few lifelong friends, ways to get involved, and the chance to live out your dreams. At this point in your life, really anything is possible, its just a matter of going after it.

As for classes and majors, you don’t have to be get locked into any direction right away; choose classes that seem interesting and fun. With all the choices out there, there’s no reason for you to study something you don’t enjoy. There are professors and organizations everywhere waiting to inspire you, so you’ll figure out the longterm goals eventually.

For now, everyone just have a warm, wonderful, relaxing summer. Work on the tan, earn a little cash, and get ready for next semester because I have a feeling Fall 2010 will be one we’ll never forget. 😉

I can not believe that my freshman year is already coming to an end. Orientation feels like yesterday, but now summer is right around the corner. The final two weeks can be a stressful. Of course everyone is looking forward to summer, but the finishing touches have to be done in every class. You don’t want to be the kid that has done well in all their class, but throws it all away the final two weeks of the year since summer is right around the corner. Finishing strong is important because it makes for a more relaxing summer. The final two weeks may be a little stressful, but as long as you manage your time it’s not that stressful. If you don’t manage your time well like me then you end up being a little stressed, but I’ll make sure I’ll my work gets done. Sometimes it’s easy to get caught up with enjoying college and the work gets pushed aside. Freshman year is a good time to find the right balance. I have changed a lot since the beginning of the year. Hopefully all in good ways. I’ve learned a lot about myself freshman year, so hopefully each year I’ll continue to grow. As for finishing out this year I want to make sure I finish strong. Good luck to everyone who may be a little stressed, but nothing to it but to do it!

Finals are over, grades have been submitted, and summer is here. I don’t know about you, but this semester seemed like it would never end. I wanted to thank all the bloggers that helped get this up and running during the year. Your help is much appreciated. Also, congratulations to everyone that graduated this past Saturday.

My plans this summer are nine credits and a month in Bolivia. Duquesne has great study abroad options for students and I’ll be posting some of my trip after I get back from South America.

To keep us going in the mean time, I want to introduce our two new bloggers. Erica and Alyssa are high school seniors planning on coming to Duquesne University. Until then, they’ll be keeping everyone updating on what the process of becoming a freshmen here is like as they graduate school and get ready for the fall. I’ve put their bios up on the Blogger Page so everyone should that out.

Posting from me will be intermittent through the next month or so, but hope everyone has a safe and much deserved rest this summer!